Summer Reading, Modern and Classic

Murder at the Fed, capitalism in Balzac's France, Thomas Mann's family saga, and what it takes to beat the market.

Vice President Joe Biden opined last year on Meet the Press that the TV sitcom Will & Grace had done more to educate the public about gay marriage than "almost anything anybody has done so far." Biden was surely right to suggest that popular culture is where people discuss and articulate hopes and fears long before lawmakers get around to addressing them.